AOL, You've Got Netscape

America Online is all set to devour an Internet giant, but how will it feel the next morning?

Steve Case had plenty to be thankful for last Thursday. The CEO of America Online sat down to turkey with his family just two days after announcing a deal to devour Netscape Communications nearly whole (he carved off a piece for his friends at Sun Microsystems). The initial spin on the most momentous merger in Internet history was that it put the world's leading online service first in line for electronic commerce and entertainment--a market that could be worth trillions in just a few years.

But every holiday binger faces that morning-after moment when the bathroom scale measures what the feast...

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